Thursday 17th December - Christmas Tree

 Oh. My. Word. Just a week until Christmas Eve.

Yesterday we gave up waiting for the new lights to be delivered, that we had planned to arrange around the bay windows. So instead, Himself and I cleaned the bay windows  (you might remember that cleaning all the windows in the house was my project for - was it September? August? Just one window left to do now, might leave that for Spring cleaning before Easter). 

Today we put up the tree. And decorated it. Well, most of it. There's still one side left to do. We've turned the tree so that from the street and from this side it looks okay; 

it's just looking a bit plain from the other side;

I don't know what has happened to the bag of 'tree tinsel'; bits of every different length that I lay along the branches. I can hear my mother saying 'the tinsel should look like snow lying on the branches'; we NEVER had it going round and round the tree like the pictures in books. Each piece had to be draped individually. Then the baubles, 'just red and silver - put those yellow and blue and green and purple ones round the back', and the finally silver lametta. 'Just a few strands at a time, hang them over the tips of the branches, work up from the bottom, until the tree looks as though it is covered in icicles'.

I have broken with this tradition by not having any tinsel, and I have gold, as well as silver and red baubles. You may be wondering why I haven't mentioned lights; about four or five years ago we bought a 5'6" artificial 'pre-lit' tree.

This year is the first year I have really struggled to decorate the tree, balancing on the step stool and reaching up and over to hang the baubles and so on. We have thought up a Cunning Plan; the tree is made in three sections, plugged together. We shall experiment when it comes to putting it away, and see if it is possible to assemble just the top two sections.

I never thought I would hear myself say it, but maybe, just maybe, a smaller tree might be an idea... 

I haven't attempted today's Advent tea...

or yesterday's Advent tea... I lack a spirit of adventure at the moment.

Yesterday, Wednesday, got off to a slow start; me and the cat, us two, had a bit of a lie-in, all very warm and cosy. Might do the same again tomorrow...